green lantern movie Archives - Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources

Publishing | Arune Singh, Marvel’s director of communications, addresses how Marvel works with media outlets to break major storyline news and in many cases spoil the story, like Ultimate Spider-Man dying. Their goal is to hopefully bring lapsed or non-fans into stores: “When we line up this kind of mainstream media coverage, it’s offering the promise of breaking this big news to the outlet. It’s with the knowledge that they’ll be the ones making the headlines, being referenced by other sites and getting the attention. But if we wait till the story breaks or the Wednesday books go on-sale, someone else is going to buy the issue early in the morning and break the news. Is it possible that mainstream outlets will still pick up on the news then? Yes, it’s possible. But the only way to guarantee that big, sweeping placement worldwide — as you’ve seen with the Death of Spider-Man — is to break it before anyone has a chance. And that kind of placement is, as I mentioned above, what will get us attention from outside the industry.” [ComicsAlliance]

Retailing | Toronto retailer Chris Butcher worries about how well the two late Green Lantern movie prequel comics — one shipping this week, one shipping in August — will sell so long after the film’s release. He also discusses the lateness of the final issue of the War of the Green Lanterns crossover, which won’t come out until after the epilogue story in this week’s Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #11. [Comics212]

The big-budget adaptation of Green Lantern is a fairly entertaining popcorn movie with a stentorian beginning, a strong finish, and a middle section which feels about a half-hour longer than it actually is. That’s not entirely unwelcome, because GL’s leads are charming when they need to be and engaging otherwise. Ryan Reynolds makes a good Hal Jordan, Blake Lively comes across pretty well as Carol Ferris, Mark Strong stands out as Sinestro, and Peter Skaarsgard plays Hector Hammond effectively as a misfit-turned-skeevy-sociopath.

Unfortunately, this is not director Martin Campbell’s best genre film, falling short of both the brisk, precise Bond reinvention Casino Royale (2005) and the clever, nimble Mask Of Zorro (1998). Even so, Green Lantern is an ambitious attempt to bring the comics’ fusion of space opera and Earthbound superheroics to a general audience, and for the most part it succeeds.